Posted
by
timothy
on Friday May 21, 2010 @04:53AM
from the sounds-like-a-commie-from-here dept.

Pax681 writes "[London Mayor] Boris Johnson declared that London will have all bus stops and lamp posts Wi-Fi enabled by 2012 for the Olympics. In an article on Tech Eye, Boris waxes lyrical (or as lyrical as he can get) about how it would be done at a Google Zeitgeist event in Hertfordshire. These would be public Wi-Fi hotpots; as such, would these break the new law on open access points? Would they be just the thing for people to use to infringe with impunity and anonymously bypass the chances of running foul of the Digital Economy Act?"

He also promised to get rid of Bendy Buses, improve rail and cycle services at no cost to the taxpayer (lolwut?) and (most likely) something about a badger in every pot.

Not being English, I read the above and guessed that a "bendy bus" was some sort of English desert. I was disappointed to learn that it has nothing in common with spotted dick, trifle, brakewell tart, or even a roly-poly, but rather it's just a frigging bus. Or more specifically, an articulated bus [wikipedia.org].

Ditto - in fact, having seen time and again what a mess "serious" politicians have made of running things, I think from now on we should all vote based on the candidate's comedic value. The country will still be screwed, but at least we'll get some laughs.

I dunno, but to us Euros the date of American independence is not as important as for the US. Europe lost many colonies including Guinea-Boisseau.We cannot keep track of every single colony running away...

You're not thinking like a politician. Why fit WiFi to 1,000,000 lamp posts when you can initiate a "take back the night skies" policy, reduce the number of lamp posts tenfold and easily keep your WiFi promise into the bargain.

Instead of investing money on this, they should have gotten better Olympic mascots. I mean, have you seen those weird assed things? What generic anime did they them out of? Wenlock and Mandeville, more like Angry and Creepy. They look like something you'd see pestering Scooby Doo.

They don't fit in the streets very well. They are unreliable, spending roughly a quarter of their life in the workshop - assuming they haven't gone on fire. On a long, straight bit of road (not many of them on a typical London bus route) they return a stunning 3mpg! Thanks to their antiquated engine designs, they burn slightly less fuel and emit only slightly more unpleasant fumes when they're on fire than when they're on the road. The only way to get them above 1.5mpg on a normal route is to tow them with a recovery truck.